


One Hell of a Story

by whatinaname



Category: Code Name Verity - Elizabeth Wein
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-11 10:44:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3324650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatinaname/pseuds/whatinaname
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is nothing flippant about the title. It was very scary for me to write. I'm not sure how believable it is or if it makes much sense at all, but I had to do it. And I think I feel better. Isolde finds out about her father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Hell of a Story

November 25, 1943

Would he call me a traitor? Would I be like Guinevere to his King Arthur? I have left my first love, the one that I was destined for by him. And at first it was divine while I read the German authors… the poets and thinkers of my own race. But I didn’t know what it was to be in love. My curiosity led me to Shakespeare and I fell so hard. And then there was Burns, and Chaucer, and Malory… and Donne. Before I knew it, my heart had been captured by the enemy… the English. How it surprises me now, to see my deepest confession starkly on the page! For I must… “Be thine own palace, or the world’s thy jail.” Or perhaps more powerfully, “This above all, to thine own self be true.” How I long to go to England! But how impossible it is!

I know that he loves me, even if he has not written much since the war began. I think the loss of my mother had something to do with it. But he never was a man of many words, although, ironically, words were his life before the war. In some sense they still have to be… surely they can’t take that away from him! I fear for him constantly.

But thank God, how it soothes my soul to know that he is not suffering on the Eastern Front or battling the Americans in Italy. But I do wish I knew what he was doing. All I know is that the postmark on his last letter was stamped “Ormaie, France”, which is near Poitiers, I think. There’s talk of the Allies invading France itself soon. If only peace could be made and I could come home to him! There is no one here in Switzerland that I care for, no one that would make me care to stay. And the news from Germany is not good… only yesterday there was a headline in the paper about a massive air raid on Berlin itself! How my heart is sore! The Deutsches Opernhaus has been destroyed by the British in the air raid! The very place he met my mother, the year it opened in 1912! She played the part of Isolde, performing Wagner’s aria the night he met her… hence my name.

He has never told me anything about what he does. I don’t even know what branch of the Army he serves with. All I know is that he is a Hauptsturmführer. Pretty sorry information for his only daughter! I’m sure he is fulfilling some very useful part of the occupation army and will make me even more proud of him than I am already.

December 20, 1943

I have received a letter. It is from a Fraulein Engel, and postmarked Ormaie. It is thick. I cannot describe the foreboding and dread that it has planted in my heart. I cannot bring myself to open it. It is still sitting on my desk as I write, staring at me.

December 21, 1943

I had to open it today. The school administration people called me in to for a chat and told me that after the holidays, I would have to leave the school. My tuition has been cut off and… Berlin told them… My father is dead. No details… nothing. So after I made it back to my room – thank God the other girls were out – I tore the letter open as the tears streaked down my face. There was quite a bit of money, and two letters. One from Anna Engel, and one from my Father. I first read his:

Dearest Isolde, (dated 12 December)

It grieves me to leave you, my darling daughter. Please keep these thoughts of mine in your heart, and remember that I am so proud of the lady you have become; your mother would have been too. You remind me ever so much of her. Whatever happens, my dearest Isolde, I pray that you will find the courage to do what you know is right. Follow your heart, and know that I love you with all of mine. 

With kisses,  
Your Loving Father,  
A.von Linden

Isolde, (dated 13 December)

There is no easy way for me to tell you this, so you must be brave. Your father, Amadeus von Linden, died yesterday. You only need know that he died with honor. Before he did, he gave me everything I have enclosed to you for that purpose. As the state has confiscated his home and accounts, I am very sorry to report that he has nothing else to give you. If you ever need anything, you only need ask me. I cannot offer you much in the way of security, but if you wish to, you may come to Berlin and stay with me as soon as I transfer there after the first of the year.

Sincerely,  
Anna Engel

Died with honor? Whatever does that mean? Why? How? When? Where? I suppose it does not matter a great deal… because there is nothing I can do about it now… but I WANT TO KNOW. I shall take myself to Ormaie and intercept Engel before she goes anywhere and get to the bottom of it. 

23 December, 1943

Train to France. There was not much to pack… I only have my satchel with me, full of a few essentials, a photograph of my parents and the complete works of Shakespeare. And my letters, of course. The ride was uneventful, thank goodness. Although it was rather packed with soldiers going on leave or transferring. And the station in Paris was overwhelming. It took me quite a bit of time to find the right track for Ormaie. But I did soon enough. Once I arrived, it wasn’t too much trouble finding the address Engel used on her letter. It was in a nice bit of town, next to the river. She guessed who I was not two seconds after she opened her door. “Isolde.” She paused. “Come in.” I’m sure nothing on earth would ever rattle this woman. “Thank you, Fraulein Engel.” “Call me Anna, please,” she offered kindly. She inquired about my trip as she invited me to take off my coat and sit down in the nearest chair. Soon she set me up with a fine cup of coffee. “Anna,” I began, “I came because I want to know… what really happened.” Anna put down her cup. “Are you sure you want to know?” she asked simply, which shook me. Although painful, I knew it would help me if I really understood. I am not a child to be babied anymore. “Please,” I replied. “Even if it’s difficult.” “I do have something for you that he wanted you to have - later.” Here she got up and picked out a leather-bound journal that was resting on top of a stack of papers. “It was his…but before you open it, I must warn you… his was not a nice job. He never told you about it because he didn’t want you to know. He was a Hauptsturmführer in the Schutzstaffel… he interrogated prisoners for the Gestapo." “Have you looked at it?” I asked, indicating his journal. “Yes, but he does not write about what he did,” she replied. “Tell me," I said. "Don’t I have the right to know?” 

Engel sighed. “He had been working here in Ormaie for just over a year,” she began. I clutched my cup, anxious to know the truth. “He was very good at understanding his prisoner’s psychology… when he should… do what he did to them; and when to bargain. In October, we caught a young woman on the street outside the headquarters… a British spy. It was her capture and what they did to her and the other girl that made the place unbearable for me.” She paused, stirring her own cup of coffee. “You mean that he had them tortured?” I asked, braced for the answer I knew I’d get. 

“She affected your father very much, the British spy,” she continued, affirming my question with a nod. “She was not much older than you, and it made him hate his work, I think. In the end he was sentenced to death because the resistance had managed to blow up his headquarters and rescue so many prisoners. But also, it was because he was lenient with her, and because the resistance managed to kill her quickly which prevented her being sent to a concentration camp. In the end, he took his own life rather than face a firing squad.” Here she stopped and looked up at me with a very pained expression on her face. “I have to admit, Isolde…” she paused, “I am the one responsible for your father’s fate. I was the traitor… that allowed the resistance the access and information they needed to succeed.” 

She didn’t make any excuse for her actions. She didn’t even beg me to keep it a secret. “Why?” I prompted. “Because what we were doing was evil.” Again, nothing but the bare, harsh truth. But then she lit a cigarette to calm herself and continued, “The British girl was being sent to a concentration camp to be experimented on medically… it was where I had worked last, and I knew the horror of it. We had inadvertently become friends over the three or so weeks that we worked together… I, translating every blasted word of her 'confession' into German for him… and I couldn’t take it. Not any more.” She looked away from me. It affected her very deeply too.

I picked up the familiar journal from the table between us and fingered its soft brown leather carefully. I took a breath as I opened it and began reading on the first page:

15 Oct. 1943.  
Marthe. Oh, how I miss you. Our darling Isolde has sent me this book for my birthday and included a lovely picture of herself; you should see how she has grown! She is radiant. She has your same perfect, petite chin. Her studies in German literature are progressing… but I hope she does not feel she must for my sake. It’s flattering, of course, that she is following in my footsteps, but I do want her to study what she wants to and be free. Along with my family and livelihood, I believe the war has taken my soul as well. Has it been three years since I lost you? Time eludes me and my emptiness consumes me. How many lives have I destroyed? I have recently detained two young women for questioning. One French and one Scottish, and how the latter lets it be known. She reminds me so much of you… her passion, her spirit… that it is mine to break. She can’t be too much older than our own Isolde. Sometimes I wonder at my willingness…

6 Nov. 1943.  
I have broken the Scottish girl’s will. It was sad to see her collapse, however easier it has made my task. Our French girl continues to resist no matter what we do; she is too proud. But our Scottish girl, a Flight Officer Beaufort-Stuart, who is rather vain and spoiled, was caught outside our doors in civilian clothes without proper identification. She has confessed to being a wireless operator for the British Special Operations Executive. After agreeing to give us the code for all eleven wireless sets she was transporting, she has also agreed to write for me everything she knows about the British war effort in exchange for the time to write it. 

8 Nov. 1943.  
I shall use these notes to supplement Flt. Off. Beaufort-Stuart’s confession and whatever she says to me in our debriefings in order to organize what I pass along to Paris and Berlin. My superior thinks I am wasting my time, but I feel that she could give us something very useful in her present frame of mind. She was designated NN because of her tendency to brawl and her capacity for escape. It was only by accident we caught her the first time, when her room was checked during an air raid, and her interrogation immediately followed her second. But we shall be careful to keep her always under guard to ensure there is no opportunity for a third.

[WARNING: The next paragraph contains nasty thoughts about Jews.]

9 Nov. 1943.  
I am surprised at her skill in storytelling. It has been so long since I have been able to critique a work of literature, and that is how her confession is taking shape. I nearly forgot at various moments the purpose of her writing. And I am ashamed to say I am drawn into her friend Margaret Brodatt’s story. Although she has not mentioned it directly, this person is most certainly Jewish. She has no respect for her place in society and even though she knows herself to be inferior, persistently tries to weasel her way to get whatever she wants… which happens to be flying aircraft. Miss Beaufort-Stuart looked like she wanted to kill me where I sat when I asked her why she was friends with a scheming Jew. But then, nearly all of England is unaware of the danger they pose to society. What a shame that such an intellectual be so deluded.

10 Nov. 1943.  
While details about RADAR are unfamiliar to a policeman like me, I am sure the High Command knows much more about it than she does. I will send on that she worked with the early warning devices, but I don’t know how interested they will be. During the debrief I tested her German and found it to be quite good. I am not sure if I believe her when she claims to not have the vocabulary to write it. She is highly intelligent and rather conniving. I’m not sure what I can believe about anything she says - we shall see what becomes of the code she gave us.

12 Nov. 1943.  
We have run out of paper. She has filled up all the stationary and forms and has yet to tell of her own role. She has taken an uncommon interest in me, however, and bothered to notice my wedding ring. Yes, my dearest Marthe, I cannot bring myself to take it off. Somehow your passing would be final if I did. We have had more pictures from the crashed plane and will confirm with Flt. Off. Beaufort-Stuart tomorrow that we don’t have any pilot to be searching for.

13 Nov. 1943.  
The washer woman has stolen food and has been sent to a camp. I shall assign Flt. Off. Beaufort-Stuart to replace her until we find someone else or we find more paper.

15 Nov. 1943.  
She has read Down and Out in Paris and London but still believes that even with the drain on society that poor and undesirable people create, she would rather have that and freedom to choose religion and politics than to be under the protection of a strong, solid government like the Third Reich. Interesting.

16 Nov. 1943.  
I have had a request from a woman from the ministry of propaganda to do a radio interview with a woman prisoner. As we are at the end of our agreed upon week, I am sure she will be more than willing to cooperate if I give her more time to finish her novel. I admit, I am beginning to put myself in her friend’s place when I read. She has drawn me in and captured me with her wit and with her love for “Maddie.” But what surprises me even more is that she blushed when I inspected her hair for lice. Somehow she cares what I think of her, and I mean beyond her appearance. Letting herself be fondled for paper! I shall replace our cook. I cannot bear to think of him working here. When I think of her so full of passion for her friend and for freedom and social morality - all I can think of is you, Marthe. And I feel like a boy, like Romeo, falling in love when I absolutely cannot. So I closed my heart with practiced control and showed no emotion.

17 Nov. 1943.  
She has agreed to my terms (of course) and I gave her an aspirin to ease the headaches. Her willingness to cooperate reminds me of Faust. I wonder if she has thought of it?

18 Nov. 1943.  
She thinks I am pure evil. It burns me to think how much I care about her opinion.

19 Nov. 1943.  
She reminds me of Scheherazade, telling her would-be-executioner stories every night to keep his interest - and finally capturing his heart. And perhaps stories is all they are. Sturmbannführer Ferber has informed me there has been no success with her codes so far. However, the radio interview today was successful, as far as I could tell. Miss Penn’s sympathies lie with the Third Reich, but she is still much too American, ready to question authority in a flash. And she had the audacity to smoke with the very slightest attempt to gain permission. I allowed her and Flt. Off. Beaufort-Stuart to indulge in order to appear as genial as possible for Miss Penn. She seemed overly concerned with the treatment of prisoners and actually admitted to not being interested in propaganda, which makes me wonder if she had an alternate purpose. Possibly it was simply her naivete at the harshness of prison life.

That night in my little Scheherazade’s cell, I asked her if she compared herself to Faust, but she only laughed and argued that he hadn’t been held prisoner by the Devil when he sold his soul. She mockingly told me to release her and that she would write and tell me about it. I think it was the Cognac speaking for her, so I let her alone.

23 Nov. 1943.  
There has been quite a lot of pressure to get information from the other prisoners, that I didn’t have time for her story for the last few days. We have heard from the BBC that the British have begun a systematic bombing of Berlin. Fraulein Engel has just heard that her father has been killed. Also, the Deutsches Opernhaus has been destroyed. My one sanctuary on earth. Oh, Marthe. None of us have any words.

24 Nov. 1943.  
Last night we were all up late catching up the translating work along with the regular workload and I stumbled upon yet more incompetence from one of the boorish idiots that have recently been assigned here. He had been burning Flt. Off. Beaufort-Stuart’s neck in order to keep her writing… anything. And so what does she write? Poems! Pages and pages wasted because he enjoyed being cruel. I cleaned the ink from her face as he went for the water. She wasn’t unconscious, but it was very close to that. And the Sturmbannführer found out about the radio interview and called me personally today to encourage me not to go above his head again. I was perplexed at his fury. Yes, she is designated NN, but no name was used, so how could anyone tell who she was?

Names. Eva Seiler. I have caught her? It seemed too good to believe. She was unforgettable and terrible when I confronted her. Her skill at getting information from people is truly amazing. I was so surprised that she knew I had a daughter; it caught me completely off guard. But she is so vulnerable herself. I could tell she expected me to hit her for her defiance, given our emotions were running so high, but all I could see was Isolde before me. So Wagner’s aria came naturally to mind. She broke into sobs not long after I begun and it cut me to my heart. How I longed to take her into my arms and comfort her like I would my own daughter. But I could not. I simply afforded her a slight bow as I quoted back to her Le Silence de la Mer before showing my frustration by banging her door shut. She has bewitched me as the French niece had done to the young, deluded German officer von Ebrennac. Possibly I am like him a little. I did believe once in the nobility of this war. I was very quick to join The Party; I believed their shouting. And - I cannot write any more.

25 Nov. 1943.  
It has become apparent that she has lied about the codes. She looked like a cornered rat when I trapped her with our pathetic French girl’s hatred of her. Rarely have I felt such anger as when she cursed me. I knew the moment I said it that my sentence on her was much too harsh. She was right; it was pure frustration. I was furious at my incapability to get anything out of the French girl and even more so that my Scheherazade had duped me all along. So she needed frightening; it was a final effort to get her to tell me the truth; her last week comes to an end tomorrow. And the French girl had outlived her usefulness. I suppose you could call it a form of mercy. It is finished now.

26 Nov. 1943.  
I have set her to reviewing; she had been expecting her death sentence I am sure, but there are other unwelcome tasks before me. The key to the service entrance has been stolen and I must set about interrogating my own staff.

28 Nov. 1943.  
After returning from dinner at the Scharführer’s home, I was able to read her last words. I have seen into her soul and I love her. I went to speak with her one last time. She didn’t even get up from where she was sitting. At first, I said nothing. I gazed into her eyes and she defiantly met that gaze, but there was also an understanding of sadness between us. In a moment of inspiration, I took off my wedding ring and laid it at her feet. “I am sorry about your friend,” was all I managed to say. Anything else would have been meaningless. I bowed again and left her.

30 Nov. 1943.  
It is final. Yesterday I plead with him to rescind her designation. But it was for nothing. She must be sent to Natzweiler-Struthof. I could sacrifice myself for the decency of her quick execution, but he has threatened me with my daughter. Dearest, Isolde. I am ruined.

1 Dec. 1943.  
I heard my guards talking about her - about how she fought them when they came for her. They had to tie her arms in order to get her out the door. And they mentioned her wearing a ring.

2 Dec. 1943.  
She is dead. One of the resistance killed her for us, says this message from the Sturmbannführer’s office. And the cleaning woman has destroyed her story. She has been taken from me. 

12 Dec. 1943.  
The Chateau de Bordeaux has been destroyed. With my prisoners escaped and my headquarters in ruins the Sturmbannführer gave me a choice between a firing squad or what he called “the honorable way out.” I have left instructions for my secretary to take care of these papers. Maybe sometime, when you are ready, you will read these notes, my darling Isolde. I hope you will forgive me some day for what I am about to do. I have been such a coward.

————————————————————————————————————

Anna asked me if I wanted another cup of coffee, bringing me back to the present. This was more of my father than I could have ever imagined. And how terrible, falling in love with a condemned woman that he had tortured. 

“I know Miss Beaufort-Stuart’s friend Maddie,” Anna began. “She made it out of France and returned safely to England, so my resistance contact tells me.” “May I meet her?” I exclaimed, suddenly. “What is left for me in Germany as the orphaned daughter of a disgraced officer? I want to go to England too!” Anna was slightly taken aback. “Can you ask the resistance?" I implored. "Do you still have contact with them?” “Yes… I can ask, of course, but what would they say?” she trailed off, thinking. “I know the way to the farm… I suppose I could make it look like I needed to speak to Etienne.” 

————————————————————————————————————

Maddie told me later that it was a hell of a fight to get the British to allow me a precious seat on one of their clandestine, moonlit flights out of France. Engel’s contact, Mitraillette, was all for it, especially after she found out that I had my father’s journal. Anything relating to Maddie’s friend must be shown to her, according to Mitraillette. I suppose this included me. I hated leaving Anna behind. 

I didn’t have to wait very long for a flight. I left what was left of my money with the resistance family, the Thibauts, to thank them. The flight itself was pretty uneventful, but that was a good thing, I learned. Maddie was waiting for me at the airfield we landed at. I was overcome with elation at finding myself in England, when I had thought it to be beyond reach not long ago. And to be meeting someone who was going to take care of me, and literally take me in. It was arranged that the Brodatt’s, Maddie’s grandfather and grandmother, were going to be responsible for me and Maddie flew me there herself! She is a pilot!


End file.
